Car coupler



Spt. 10, 1940.

A. CHRISTIANSON 2,214,718

CAR COUPLER Filed May 12. 1939 BY f ATTORNEY.

INVENTOR Patented Sept. 10, 1940 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE OAR COUPLER.

Arnold Christianson, Hammond, Ind.

Application May 12, 1939, Serial No. 273,245

2 Claims.

My invention relates to railway car couplers, and more particularly'to a safety feature which will prevent one coupler from climbing". out of or being vertically displaced from its mating coupler. With well-known standard types of couplers heretofore mainly used, severe jolts are known to have caused one coupler to rise completely out of the clutch of its mate, and thereby permit the steel underframe of the climbing car to shear off the super-structure of the adjacent car end when the cars are thrust toward one another.

One object of my invention is to provide a safety device which can readily be applied to various standard types of car couplings, merely by substituting a particular form of knuckle. and without the necessity of making any changes in the draw head structure.

In the accompanying drawing, Figure 1 is a plan view of a coupler equipped with my invention; Fig. 2 is a side View thereof, partially in section; and Fig. 3 is a face View of one of the coupler heads.

The coupler heads 4 and 5 may be of standard form, and the knuckles 6 and I mounted on the pivot pins 8 and 9, respectively, may be of the usual form, except forv the addition to the knuckles as hereinafter referred to.

Similarly, the knuckles will be provided with suitable standard lock-lifting mechanism, as indicated generally at l 0, for manipulating the lock which releasably holds each knuckle in its coupled position. Each of the knuckles B is provided with a 1113- II that will lie under the lower edge of the coupler face 12 of the adjacent draw head. Thus when the knuckles are closed, as shown in Fig. 1, the wing. ll of the knuckle 6 will underlie the draw head 4, and the wing of the knuckle I will underlie the draw head 5.

As shown more clearly in Fig. 2, there is considerable clearance between the wing II and the coupler face l2, so that ordinarily there will be no interference when coupling cars whose draw heads are at different heights above the rails.

5 It will be seen that while there can be desired relative vertical movements of the draw heads 4 and 5, the wings ll limit the range of such movements and prevent the couplers from becoming disconnected through such relative ver- 50 tical movements.

Draw heads usually slope somewhat at their lower sides, as indicated at [3, and the wing ll of each knuckle will move under said sloping surface of the mating draw head when the knuckles are being pushed to their closed positions. If the two draw heads are vertically offset an excessive distance when they are being brought together, the wing ll of one knuckle 5 will cooperate with the surface l3 of the other draw head to shift into more nearly horizontal alinement. Also the wings II are set far enough backwardly of the noses of their respective knuckles that they are not in danger of being 10 struck and broken when the knuckles are open, while the couplers are being brought together, even if one draw head is much higher than the other.

I claim as my invention: 15

1. Car coupling structure comprising a pair of cooperating drawheads each having a forward portion the lower surface of which slopes outwardly and upwardly beneath the foremost face of the drawhead, at one side thereof, and each 20 drawhead pivotally supporting a knuckle at its other side, each knuckle being provided with a laterally-extending wing at its lower end, the wing being. so positioned on its knuckle that during closing movement of the knuckle, that 25 area of the wing closest to the front vertical face of the knuckle will, during its entire travel, move in a path directly beneath the said sloping surface of the other drawhead, whereby the drawhead will be lifted if it is in an abnormally low 30 position, while its forward face is closely adjacent to the knuckle.

2. Car coupling structure comprising a pair of cooperating drawheads each having a forward portion, the lower surface of which slopes out- 35 wardly and upwardly beneath the foremost face of the drawhead, at one side thereof, and each drawhead pivotally supporting a knuckle at its other side, each knuckle being provided with a laterally-extending wing at its lower end, the 40 wing being so positioned on its knuckle that during closing movement of the knuckle, that area of the wing closest to the front vertical face of the knuckle will, during its entire travel, move in a path directly beneath the said sloping surface of the other drawhead, whereby the drawhead will be lifted if it is in an abnormally low position, while its forward face is closely adjacent to the knuckle, the upper surface of the wing being disposed in a plane approximately parallel to a horizontal plane through the longitudinal axis of the drawbar.

ARNOLD CHRIS'I'IANSON. 

